Archive for December, 2006

I’m an incurable knitter. I’m pretty much hooked on lacework and have a number of books on lacework patterns. I’ll just knit swatches of things just to learn how to make a texture or pattern. Sometimes I just like to sift through the books and read the symbols on graph paper to interpret not just the image of the pattern, but imagine the sequencing of the stitches, loops, knots. I had a pattern book out, and a friend of ours noted… that it reminded him of the work he does (he’s a programmer).

I ran across this link from Boing Boing the other day on Crafty Geometry or an article on how mathmeticians are crafting visualizations of their work and theories. My favorite example is that of hyperbolic space. Though I don’t think I’ll be knitting a business process workflow or a gantt anytime soon.

As training organizations we could focus on empowering better social/informal learning rather than producing the traditional costly training end products (face to face training, media rich e-learning). – However, the problem with this is you often have to deal with a lot of crusty managers who think that this is normally built into employee’s job responsibilities (even though it isn’t formally/properly addressed)

If I’m obsessing over focus on informal learning, I considered -what about the formal and more permanent forms or products of learning? How do we make sure that we’re doing an adequate job of capturing what needs to be put in formal form? What about Librarians? What possibilities do they see in applying 2.0 technology? In my searches I found one blogger/librarian, Meridith, who openly discusses the uses and challenges of applying the technology to practice. I’d like to find out and listen more to what bloggers in the library world are doing about 2.0, and hopefully I can keep track of this in future posts.

In reading Meridith’s blog posting, and recounting some of the dialogue I’ve been seeing lately about 2.0 hype, I started to think about how tenuous ideas and proposals are when they first come out. Although Web 2.0 gives us a lot of glitzy promises through it’s beta concepts, 2.0 application in the real-world is still in it’s &quot;toddler years.&quot; (It’s just given up crawling, and has started to learn how to walk clumsily on two legs). People in the workforce are really just beginning ot apply things like wikis and blogs, and their exploration of these things naturally will be clunky on the onset. I think as I’ve heard a lot of skeptical discussion about the staying power of blogs that some people are becoming overly saturated with 2.0 hype. However, I still believe that if those of us who enjoy using the technology and benefit from it keep on using it to allow us to grow, learn, expand and collaborate better for success, there’s no reason to assume that 2.0 apps like blogs/wikis have to die away. I think Blogs have been around for at least 4-5 years maybe more… and public awareness has just hit mainstream proportions. Wikipedia is still going strong, and many companies are now adopting use of wiki-software to communicate and collaborate.

I’ve felt that being a tech-evangelist for waves like 2.0 is a tricky position. My feeling is (being the victim of Sharepoint-evangelization or more Sharepoint mandate) don’t force tools down people’s throats – Instead use this approach:

Understand what the resistance points are to adopting the tools and methodologies

All done in Flash and most likely executed with a great deal of programming to achieve the physical effects of tossing and manipulating objects. Also, I tried yanking the little puppet-like people by different body parts (head, arm leg, torso) and the puppet acts accordingly. Amazing, huh?

Though far less intricate and detailed, the cutouts remind me of a great short animation I saw recently. Very macabre, but fascinating, nevertheless: The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello. Cutouts have always drawn me. It’s as if the shadows actually replace the objects that cast them. Though more importantly with cutouts you can focus on the beauty of the objects as a whole and not be distracted by petty details like shading of colors or maybe a tiny scratch or discoloration. You can see a snapshot of body in action, perhaps you can read emotion from their stance but you focus on the over-all idea of what the person is doing.

I remember watching a documentary on PBS which featured an artist who did great roomfuls of shadow/cutout art. I tried to do a google search on her and eventually I did find her (Kara E. Walker’s Song of the South: http://redcat.org/gallery/0506/walker.php), but I also found a wonderful tour of other artists works’. This tour or wandering through my internet gallery walk powered by search engines, made me a little homesick for New York and Chicago and the art museums. Though arguably, art and artists exist almost everywhere.

I know that people often cannot solidly define the value of art, but for me what has drawn me to the works of artists which I admire is their ability to define and interpret views, thoughts, feelings, exsistence. Me as a beholder of art, my job is to react to what I see.

There has been some insightful discussion around the problem of vanadalism of wikis or people making unwanted changes to wiki content out in the blogosphere. Maybe it’s me, but if we’re basing out fear of using wikis on the possibility that a few malicious people will ‘mess things up,’ then are we being too paranoid? Should this paranoia extend to us who use wikis in the business world? I mean if someone is actively sabotaging content on our wikis then maybe there’s a problem with that individual that you could probably address with them directly or through their manager. And realistically, if someone is spending extra time putting unwanted content on wikis, what does that really say about them other than they have a lot of time on their hands?

Within a highly political body, like a corporation, I could see organizations struggling over ownership and stewardship of content. I definitely could see this among people if the company rewards people for ownership and leadership of ideas or initiatives. But then let’s remember that the wiki is sort of a ‘knowledge playground.’ It’s not necessarily a warehouse or library of formal information. Wikis are about people working together to gather information or put it together. It’s a community affair. We need to encourage people to embrace the new paradigm (sorry, I’ve used this word more than twice now this week) of collaborating to build content. More, we need to let go of our assumptions that a few people who ‘suck’ will spoil it for the rest of us. As Luis Suarez points out in post on elsua: The KM Blog:

Start provoking that cultural change today! Don’t leave it for when it may be too late. Own the wiki experience as if it were yours!There will be a great chance that you will get out of them just you wanted and I am sure that people will not suck then while interacting with wikis. Up to us now to provoke that cultural change.

Even if vandals or mischievious imps take their toll, wiki software allows you to quickly wipe away their wiki-graffiti. In fact, software such as the Wikipedia-used Mediawiki actually has wonderfully simple features which allow you to quickly rollback content and remove unwanted changes. Sounds like I’m trying to sell pimple creme here.

Resources or other fun nuggets:

Jay Cross describes Wikis and why a Chief Learning Officer or CLO should care about them. “Because learning is social…” as he says

I just read this post on Creating Passionate Users, on “Dilbert and the Zone of Mediocrity.” Although the post addresses the idea that if you develop a product that pleases everyone at first then you’re doomed to fail, the words “Dilbert” and “mediocrity” sparked some other recollections in me. Now I’m probably going to piss off some Dilbert fans here in saying this but… I’ve always felt that Dilbert was sort of a black hole for employee angst. In my past job I would walk past people’s cubes who had the outsides and insides papered with their favorite Dilbert cartoons. Somehow, it felt as if this coating with funny strips was a sort of shield against the overwhelming feeling that one must acquiesce to the omnipresent corporate demon. It was sort of like covering your room walls with prayer cards or depictions of holy saints (yes, I was raised Catholic) in order to protect yourself from wiley evil forces.

Yes, Dilbert is witty and often spot on in it’s observations and assessments of cubicle/corporate life, but Dilbert cartoons do nothing to light fires underneath the backsides of people who feel that they can’t affect a change in their environment or even influence others to change (just a little). If I’ve learned anything this past year, it’s that change is possible, and in order for organizations, groups, companies, pods, communities or what not to be nimble enough to survive uncertain times their members must become masters of change. At least their leaders must become masters at leading others through change. Hiding behind a wall of Dilbert cartoons just isn’t going to cut it.

If I make one New Years resolution, other than buying a Wii and going to the gym more often, it will be this:

I want to be a vehicle for change and I wish to positively influence and guide others through change.

At the end of every year I try to assemble a set of lessons that I’ve learned. I’m still working on this list (being reflective) so I may have to add or adjust before the end of the year. I try to use such a list to build a personal development plan of things I want to learn about or how to do for the following year. I’ve divided the inventory of important things I’ve learned in to three categories:

About the world around me and the rules of the game

About me

Cool stuff

About the world around me and the rules of the game

You are nothing without your team. The more you learn to work well and play with others, the faster you’ll get things done. Yes, it’s true that teams have their hiccups, but it’s better to face the probably of conflict up front and figure out how to work out problems

Organizations need to take stock in their leaders and make sure they have a diverse population of types of leaders. You need to have visionaries who really embrace change, but you need to have people who act as stabilizers/parents to make sure that we’re on the right path

Man is a political animal, so noted Aristotle, so you can never escape politics, so deal with it and learn to live despite it (sort of knew this but I re-visit the idea constantly living in Corporate America)

People inherently fear change – they need a little help, empathy and understanding, but you have to set clear expectations and goals for change to make it happen

Anyone can be creative or innovative. Everyone has the abilities to be creative or innovative in them

Never forget the importance of making connections (ideas, people, people-ideas)

Chill out

I’m an Idler, and that’s not such a bad thing, but I still need to benefit from the gifts of those who are more ‘process-oriented.’

Cool Stuff

We are on the verge of really using the power of the net for collaboration and sharing (but openess is a double-edged sword so we should consider the effects)

Web 2.0/Learning 2.0 is best fit for folks who have active learning style. There are portions of it (Blogging) that help reflectives like myself. But we need to figure out how to empower all learners with 2.0 power